Reuben handed her a small statuette—a cartoonish Anglepoise desk lamp made of crystal on an onyx base. A single word was engraved on the base.
Teambuilder
.
That was exactly how Camilla thought of herself and what she did, too. As usual, her mentor understood her. She threw her arms around Reuben and hugged him, thanking him. Then she turned to face her team, seeing their generous smiles. Reuben shouldn’t have singled her out. He shouldn’t be giving her credit for success they all had achieved together. She cleared her throat, raising the microphone.
“This award should really be for you, not me. You earned it. All of you.”
She loved how these world-class talents could set aside their egos and work with her and each other, creating pure entertainment magic.
“I started here eight years ago, pretty much straight out of college—except for a year in biotech, which wasn’t really my thing. Back then, our studio was a lot smaller. We’ve grown with each success, but the thing I love most about being here hasn’t changed one bit, and that’s you—
all
of you.” Camilla’s eyes blurred. “You’re like a family to me.”
She held the award up, smiling, and took a moment to regain her composure.
“Like a family, you drive me crazy sometimes. But you also inspire me. I wake up in the morning and have to pinch myself, thinking, I can’t believe I get paid to do what I do, or who I get to work with. Oh god, I’d better shut up now, or Reuben’s going to figure out I’d do it for free just for the privilege of working with you.”
She hugged Reuben again and spoke over the applause.
“Don’t think you all can distract me with this, by the way.” She pointed at three smiling faces in the audience. “Jerry, Pritha, and Gianna, let’s meet at two. We need to talk about the changes Gianna wants.”
Movement at the entrance to the auditorium caught her eye. Remy, her administrative assistant, waved at her again and held a thumb-and-pinky phone hand up near her ear, then lowered it to flatten palm down at waist height. A knot tightened in her chest. The call was from one of her foundation kids, then. Remy’s instructions were to interrupt anything she was doing when those calls came. Camilla had half expected a call today, but—thinking of the unusual invitation letter in her purse—she realized she would have to say no this time.
“Sorry, something just came up,” she said into the microphone. “This celebration is really for all of you, though, so don’t wait up for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Camilla followed Remy back to her office. Although her workspace was bright and cheery with cartoon figurines and art everywhere and windows along two walls, it lacked a door for privacy.
“I’ll take the call in the conference room,” she told Remy.
• • •
“But I don’t want to go with Briana,” Avery said. “I want to go with you.” He sounded resigned, but Camilla could hear the tears threatening to break through.
Avery was only seven. Life had been so cruel to these kids her foundation was dedicated to: children who had lost both parents. She sat on the conference table and rested her feet on a chair, holding the phone to her ear. “Avey,” she said, “sometimes, even though I want to see you, I have to do other things. But in two weeks, I promise—”
He was crying now, his muffled sobs coming through the phone. Camilla closed her eyes.
“I’ll be back in two weeks, maybe even sooner,” she said. “I’ll come pick you up and we’ll go to the zoo again. Together.”
“I want my mommy and my daddy back. Why did they have to die?”
“I don’t know, Avey. I don’t think anybody knows that.”
“Why can’t you just take me to live with you?”
She had asked herself the same question, many times. But there were so many of them. Davey, Ellie, Pedro, Cassie—an endless parade of little faces. She couldn’t adopt all of her kids.
“My apartment is too small, Avey. And it wouldn’t be fair to the others.”
For every kid her foundation tried to help, there were dozens more. The foundation was just herself, a nonprofit registration and fancy letterhead, and whatever time she could get out of Briana and Taylor—overworked volunteers on their college semester breaks. They were drowning.
Avery’s sobs tore at Camilla. “I wish I was dead, too.”
A fist tightened around her heart. “Don’t ever say that. Never.”
She wiped wetness from her cheeks with the heel of her palm, set her jaw, and raised the lid of her MacBook Air. She brought up a travel site and checked flights. Holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder, she opened her purse and fished out a credit card.
“Avey, listen to me. There’s a very special place I want Briana to take you,” she said. “Have you ever been to Disneyland?”
Five minutes later, she was speaking to Briana, one of her two volunteers. “Stop worrying so much. It’ll be fun for you, too.”
“But I can’t get them to open up to me the way you do,” Briana said, “I don’t have your magic touch.”
“You just need to be his friend,” Camilla said. “That’s all. Hold his hand and have fun together. Show him it’s all right to be happy and to laugh again. When he wants to talk about it, he will.”
She rubbed the Disney stickers that decorated the brushed aluminum cover of her laptop. “Briana, I know you’ll be wonderful,” she said. “I’ll even share a little trade secret with you….”
For the girls, it was usually Cinderella or Snow White—beloved Disney orphans—that did the trick: letting the kids see that losing their parents wasn’t the end, that life was possible again. But Avery was a boy.
Camilla smiled. “Make sure you take him on the Peter Pan ride.”
After she hung up, she looked at her laptop screen. Even though she wasn’t going herself this time, the Disney company would cover the park admission as usual, thanks to the standing arrangement she had worked out with them. But she had spent a thousand of her own dollars for the plane tickets and the hotel. She was doing that more and more often—more often than she could really afford—and still her little nonprofit was drowning. How could she choose who got help and who didn’t?
She hated this; it was so unfair to them.
If only she could afford to hire full-time staff for the foundation, pay them, and cover the plane tickets and hotels. Then she would be able to do so much more.
She touched the invitation letter in her purse. The enclosed check would pay for five trips like Briana and Avery’s this weekend. She felt guilty about sending Briana instead of going herself, but she had to see what this invitation was all about. Her heart quickened, thinking about the possibilities. Five thousand might be only the tip of the iceberg. And publicity for her foundation? All she had to do was show up tonight—no commitment—to find out more. Two weeks? It might even be fun.
She tamped down her excitement for one sober moment to consider the wording of the invitation. She really had no idea what this thing was. It might be something she wanted nothing to do with.
She would know soon enough. Right now she had to focus on other things. She pushed through the conference room door, grabbed her award off her desk, and swept past Remy’s cubicle. “Call Reuben and tell him I’m coming to see him. Now.”
“Hold on a second,” Remy called after her. “Your eyes are red.”
She stopped. “Oh god, how embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just tell him you were getting high.”
Camilla laughed, turning back.
Remy held a small plastic dropper bottle out to her. “Visine.”
“That’s sweet of you.” She took it and hugged Remy. “You’re a pal.”
“You only like me because I don’t ask questions.” Remy waved her away. “Go see the boss man. I’ll tell him to wait for you.”
• • •
“I wasn’t really kidding about being mad.” Camilla held up the
“Teambuilder”
award. “I love this, but you shouldn’t have. We talked about it.”
Reuben smiled at her. “The test-screen audience loved the latest changes.”
She blushed. “Gianna’s a great writer—”
“Gianna said it was mostly you.”
“She just needed a sounding board. We bounced a few ideas around.”
“You convinced the texture animators to use more procedural rendering, too. We’re going into postproduction three weeks ahead of schedule because of it.”
Rueben pointed at the award Camilla held in her lap. “I want you to know I had mixed feelings about that. Part of me didn’t want to give it to you.”
“So why did you, then, Reuben? It isn’t fair to the rest of the team.”
“The studio is ready to ramp up another production track next year.” He looked out the window for a long moment. “I want you to lead it. As full producer.”
“That’s not my thing. What about Kevin? Everyone loves working for him.”
Reuben shook his head. “Kevin says he wants to work under you. He wants to be your AP. The only person who doesn’t think you’re ready is you. They all wanted to give you that award. That’s why I didn’t want to. We’re just reinforcing this behavior.”
She looked down at the award. “I don’t understand.”
Reuben sighed. “I think you’re afraid to step out from behind the team and take a chance on yourself. You’re ducking the spotlight, Camilla. Something inside you is holding you back.”
Her neck tensed. Why was he pushing her like this? She was great at what she did and she loved it. He had always understood her before.
She forced herself to relax. “Look, I’m honored that you’d want to give me the opportunity,” she said, “but it’s really not what I do. I’m taking a couple weeks off, and I’ll think about it while I’m away. That’s all I can promise. We’ll talk again when I’m back.”
“I’m glad you’re taking a real vacation,” he said. “You deserve it.” He made a shooing motion. “Have a little fun. It shouldn’t always be about the team. Sometimes it needs to be about you.”
• • •
Walking across the quad toward her office, Camilla spotted Dean headed in the opposite direction, coming her way. She suppressed the urge to avoid him and gave him a smile instead. She refused to let this become awkward. Especially at work.
Dean stopped, so she had to as well.
“Congratulations,” he said, looking at the award in her hand.
“Thanks.” Camilla’s gaze roamed his handsome, earnest face. She had liked Dean a lot. She had let herself get attracted and started dating him, even though she knew that mixing work and her personal life was a bad idea. He was thoughtful, fun, adventurous; the sex was great; they laughed a lot together; and he had respected her boundaries—until he crossed the line.
“How’s everything?” she asked.
“Painful,” he said. “Confusing.”
Her throat tightened. Everything had been so good, but he’d ruined it. He had no right to do what he did. Now it was over, and he needed to understand that.
She met his eyes, crossing her arms and hugging the award against her chest. “I want us to stay friends.”
“We
are
friends. No creepy stalker stuff, I promise. I just care about you.”
“People who care about each other don’t violate each other’s privacy.”
“Look, I know it’s over, but I wish I knew what I did that made you angry—”
“I’m not angry. But I trusted you, and you went behind my back.” Her heart sped up, but she kept her voice even. “I got a call from Euclid House, saying you were asking them about my foundation, about me—”
“Because I wanted to know more about this very special person who was coming to mean so much to me—”
She shook her head. “No, Dean.”
“…but who’s so damn… I don’t know, compartmentalized, I guess, that I couldn’t really get to know you. Camilla, you’re gorgeous, funny, sweet, sexy, and smart as hell, but there’s only this small part of you that you’re willing to share. You should be proud of what your foundation does.”
“I won’t talk about that with you.”
How deep had he dug? Deep enough to know that she had spent much of her own childhood at Euclid House? If he had found that out, then his next questions would have taken him to the earthquake, and the dark years afterward. A chill ran along her upper arms, turning them to gooseflesh, and she rubbed them, trying to read his face.
He swallowed, looked down. “You’re doing that thing again, with those beautiful, big brown eyes—”
“Don’t.” She let him hear the warning in her voice.
“Sorry.” His Adam’s apple bobbed again.
Her breathing sped up in sympathy. He had brought this on himself, prying where he had no business. Still, she hadn’t meant to hurt him. She reached out and touched his forearm gently. “Friends.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I have to go.”
“Take care of yourself, then, Dean.” Camilla straightened her shoulders and strode off toward her own building without looking back.
Marina District, San Francisco, California
T
he clown fish grinned its cheerful, spacey grin. It seemed to be asking her,
Are you sure you want to do this crazy thing?
Camilla was sure. She turned off the thermostat and set the alarm. Then she took one last look around her apartment. It was small, and the rent was high, but it was in San Francisco’s Marina District, surrounded by trendy cafés, shops, and nightlife—a great place to live if you were a young, single professional woman. The entire Marina District was built on top of landfill and vulnerable to earthquakes, Camilla knew, but she wouldn’t let fear limit her choice of where to live. She loved it here.
Except for the commute. Not the evenings, when she’d sail across the wide-open upper deck of the Bay Bridge, convertible top down, long brown curls bouncing in the wind, the water sparkling on both sides. The problem was the morning drive, which took her underneath the two-story bridge’s lower deck. The low metal beams would close in overhead, and her breaths would come fast and shallow until she was back out in the sunshine again. But Camilla willingly accepted the challenge. It was a daily dragon to be slain.
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake lay buried twenty-three years in her past. It had taken everything from her when she was seven, swallowing her family and consuming her childhood memories in its relentless darkness.